Copyright Date

Not all materials marked as copyrighted are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

British Copyrights

The phrase “Entered at Stationers’ Hall” (or “Entered at Sta. Hall”) indicates that a game was registered with the Stationers’ Company of London, denoting copyright protection of an item that was not protected by royal privilege (“By Royal Letters Patent“). This type of copyright registration started in the 1560s and was terminated by the UK Copyright Act of 1911, starting on 1 July 1912. (Source) Therefore, games with this marking were produced during or before 1912.

General

The copyright date can be used as a “no-earlier-than” date. The same game can be produced for years after the copyright was claimed or approved.

A game may include several copyrighted items. For example, the cover graphics may be copyrighted and the rules separately copyrighted. The copyright dates may not be the same. The title of the game may be different on the cover and on the rules.

Sometimes a game includes a copyright notice from another company (for example, Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera Productions) when a game company has been authorized to use characters or other intellectual property owned by that company. In this case, the particular copyright marking does not necessarily apply to the game itself or its rules, and can only be used as a “no-earlier-than” date.

See Copyrights.

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Patent Number or Patent Pending

United States

If you know the US patent number, you can look it up through resources on the Patents page.

The US Patent and Trademark Office has a summary of patent numbers issued each year. Note that what most people call a patent is actually called a “utility” patent; there are other types of patents, for example a design patent.

Germany

Online searches are available from the German Patent and Trademark Office.

Deutsches Reichs Patent (D.R.P. or D.R., German Reich Patent), used from 1877 through 1945, identifies an item with full German patent protection.(reference)

Deutsches Bundespatent (D.B.P., German Federal Patent), used from 1949 to date, identifies an item with full German (or West German) patent protection.(reference)

German utility model registrations in the Reich from 1 June 1891(reference) to 1952 (or 1949) were identified on games as “D.R.G.M.” (Deutsches Reichs-Gebrauchs-Muster, literally, German Reich Utility Model). These represented a lower grade protection for inventions than Deutsches Reichs Patent (reference) and offered protection for 3 years (reference). A majority of the original D.R.G.M. records were discarded. (reference)

From October 1952 to date, German (or West German) utility model registrations were labeled as “D.B.G.M” (Deutsches Bundesgebrauchsmuster, literally, German Federal Utility Model).

General

The inclusion of a patent number can generally be used to define a “no-earlier-than” date. Note that a patent may have several dates, including the filing date, prior publication date, filing update date, and granting date.

If the item is marked “Patent Pending” and you can locate the approved patent and its filing date, you will then know the “no-later-than” date for the game.

Note that existence of a patent does not guaranteed that a game was actually published, sold, or distributed.

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Trademark and Service Mark

United States

The symbol ® (letter R in a circle) was authorized to identify a registered trademark in the United States starting in 1946.

The name of the “U.S. Patent Office” was changed to “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office” in 1975.

The following phrases also identify a registered trademark:

• “Registered in U.S. Patent Office”
• “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.”
• “Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office” (starting in 1975)
• “Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.” (starting in 1975)

Nowadays, the term “Trademark” or “Trade Mark”, abbreviation “TM”, or symbol™ alone does not signify that a phrase was registered. However, older games may be marked as “Trademark” or “Trade Mark” and are actually registered.

The term “Service Mark” or symbol ℠ represents an unregistered mark for a service instead of product, since products would warrant a trademark.

Germany and West Germany

D.R.W.Z. (Deutsches Reichswarenzeichen, literally German Reich Trademark), represents a registered trademark issued from 1891 through October 1952. (reference)

D.B.W.Z. (Deutsches Bundeswarenzeichen, literally German Federal Trademark), represents a registered trademark issued from October 1952 to the present day. (reference)

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Registered Design (Rd.) Diamond Marks (Great Britain only)

From 1842 to 1883, decorative items could be registered in Great Britain to protect the design from being copied and produced without approval.

Items so registered may be labeled with a so-called diamond mark that includes codes identifying the type of material used (e.g., wood) and date registered.

This diamond mark is from the cover of John Jaques’ Moorish Fort game.

• The “I” at top identifies the class of material used: metal (the metal fort used in the game was the item registered; note that other materials are present in the game).
• The “G” below it identifies the year registered: 1863.
• The “Rd.” in the middle is an abbreviation for “Registered”.
• The “W” on the left of the diamond identifies the month registered: March.
• The “5” on the right of the diamond identifies the day registered: 5.
• The “5” at the bottom of the diamond identifies the bundle (how many items were submitted in the registration)

Therefore, the above diamond represents a registered design made of metal and registered on 5 March 1863.

Reference for Diamond Marks from the National Archives, London

Reference guide from Lenville J. Stelle

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Inclusion of a Postal Code

United States

Postal zones for large U.S. cities were introduced in 1943. Example:

Brooklyn 4, New York

Zip codes were introduced in the United States in 1963. Example:

Beverly Hills CA 90210

Zip+4 was introduced in 1983. Example:

WASHINGTON DC 20500-0001

Reference for US Zip codes

United Kingdom

Postcodes in the UK have a long history, back to the mid-1800s, and evolved through various schemes. The current postcode system was instituted starting in 1971 and completed in 1974. See Reference for UK Postcodes.

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Presence of a UPC Scan Code

Universal Product Code scan codes were introduced in late 1972, though general adoption occurred in the 1980s. See Reference 1; Reference 2.

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Presence of a CE Marking

The CE (originally, Conformité Européenne, meaning European Conformity) marking is a certification mark that signifies “that products sold in the European Economic Area have been assessed to meet high safety, health, and environmental protection requirements” (CE Marking website). The CE marking was first used in 1985.

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Company Name

Companies occasionally change their name or primary brand identity. For example, Hassenfeld Brothers was formed in 1923 and became Hasbro Industries in 1968.

Companies also change their legal name by adding “Co.”, “Inc.”, “and Son” and other suffixes. For example, Parker Brothers was incorporated on 12 December 1901 (reference), so if you see “Parker Brothers Inc.” on a game, it was published on or after that date, even if it has an earlier date elsewhere in the game. J. Jaques & Son in London became a limited liability company in England on 17 April 1899 (source: Michael Thomson email on 30 September 2020 to Rick Tucker), thereafter being called “J. Jaques & Son Ltd.”.

Companies also add partners. For example, CADACO Ltd. was formed in 1935 and became Cadaco-Ellis in 1937.

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Company Ownership

When a company is purchased by another company, the acquirer may continue to use the purchased company’s brand for a number of years or may retire it. For example, Milton Bradley Co. purchased McLoughlin Bros. in 1920, but continued to issue games under the McLoughlin Bros. name for a few years thereafter. They continued publishing books under the McLoughlin Bros. name thereafter.

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Company Logo or other Markings

Companies often start out without a logo, then adopt one, and periodically thereafter modify it or change it entirely. For example, Parker Brothers Inc. introduced its “signature” logo as early as 1927, and used it as late as 1962, though it was also used in conjunction with another, newer logo, the “swirl” logo, as late as 1971.

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Company Address

Companies may relocate or adopt a different address over time. For example, McLoughlin Bros. held offices at 24 Beekman Street in New York City in 1858, 30 Beekman Street in 1864, 623 Broadway from 1886 to 1887, and at 890 Broadway from 1914 to 1920.

J. W. Spear & Son originally produced all games in their factory in Nürnberg, Bavaria, even games for sale in the UK. According to the book, Games We Play • History of J. W. Spear & Sons, by Helmut Schwarz and Marion Faber, pages 75–76, Spear established a factory in Enfield, England, and started production there on 1 April 1932. However, for some time thereafter, some games or portions thereof were made in Bavaria and boxed in England, until Germany was isolation due to the rise of Naziism. Therefore, games marked with Enfield, England can be dated to be made no earlier than 1932.

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Inclusion in a Company Catalog

Companies produce catalogs listing their games with prices, and often with engraved or photographic illustrations of the games. These were provided to retailers and sometimes to any customer upon request. See a list of company catalogs available online and at the Strong Museum of Play.

Note that some games were published for many years, sometimes with the same cover and box style, and even date markings. For example, Parker Brothers’ Hop Scotch Tiddledy Winks was produced from 1891 through the early 1920s.

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Country of Origin Marking

Goods made outside the United States that were imported for sale in the United States were required to be marked with their country of origin starting in 1891, e.g. Made in Germany, Product of Canada, British Manufacture, or similar wording. Note that some games before that date may also be marked with their country of origin. (reference).

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Country Name

Country names change over time as a country divides, reunites, renames itself, or is occupied. Examples:

• “West Germany” was used from 23 May 1949 through 3 October 1990.(reference)
• “Czechoslovakia” divided into the “Czech Republic” and “Slovakia” in 1993.
• “Irish Free State” was in existence from 1922 through 1937 when it became Éire, or Ireland.

A detailed list of country name changes can be found on Wikipedia.

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Handwritten Date

Sometimes handwriting appears on a game that includes a date. For example, parents may mark the bottom of the game: “To Charles, from Mother and Father, Christmas 1911”. The game’s owner (particularly children) sometimes write their name on the box with a date.

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Features an Historical Event

A game that features an historical event can be dated as no-earlier-than the actual event. Examples include: a Tut tiddlywinks game based on the discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamun, which was discovered in 1922; and the Quints tile puzzle game, based on the Dionne quintuplets, who were born in Canada on 28 May 1934.

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Roman Numerals

Sometimes a company will express a year in roman numerals, e.g. MCMXLVIII (1948). Converter.

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Materials

Celluloid was invented in 1869. Except for ping-pong balls, the use of celluloid ended in the 1940s. Reference. Celluloid items tend to have a slight shine to them

Vegetable ivory, based on resin from South American palm tree nuts called Tagua, was first imported from Ecuador to Germany in the 1860s. The production of vegetable ivory items was at its peak in 1929 and 1930. Reference. Items made of vegetable ivory tend to have no shine, and no grain like bone (unless turned on a lathe, in which case it may have circular markings, or cut roughly with a blade leaving cut marks).

Games containing injection-molded colored plastic parts are likely to have originated no earlier than the 1950s. Injection-molded pieces tend to have burrs where they were separated from connectors of multiple pieces. Reference.

See the Materials page.

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Other Dating Resources

• Coxsackie Antiques Center
• Dating Scrabble games by Selchow & Righter

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